Time optimistically pessimistic

Okay. I’ll admit it. When the election was finally announced on Tuesday night at eleven PM by none other than John Stewart of comedy central; I was relieved. Relieved number one that may just maybe things would begin to change for the country and number two that after twenty plus months the process to elect was over. Now we as a nation could get back on track to being a notion built on freedom and on the way back up in the eyes of the rest of the world. By more than four to one the rest of the world was rooting for the same guy I was. Now before you go putting on that, what do I care what the rest of the world thinks, think about the world you live in. As it stands now we owe China so much money we could be considered their boy toy!

Sure, in the old days we pretty much ruled the seas, the air ways and all that seemed important enough to rule. We edged out the rest of the world in education of our people; we kept more of our children alive that any other country and we offered a helping hand from a wallet that was quite full to the rest of the world when things went bad for them. I can still see the word, “CARE” stamped on boxes of food and rice going out to other needy countries. Our word meant something!

Things have changed as of late. It’s not your father’s world anymore, and quite frankly he would be disappointed in what has happened under our watch. Visions of people standing on roof tops flooded and sinking in New Orleans come to mind. A Government asleep at the wheel spouting deregulation while those very same corporations driven by greed and self service take the nation to the brink of financial collapse. Fox’s in charge of hen houses so to speak in every industry known to man. Placed their by people who should have known better that were enamored by titles and experience only to have the chosen ones, exhibit a greed that knows no limits. From airline bailouts to the possible collapse of the car industry; from the elderly ignored to the young un-educated, from a philosophy that supports those who can and has no pity for those that can’t. A place where once the rising tide of good fortune lifted us all to a country where we willingly use the ones that can’t make it as scapegoats and hold their failures as reasons to be that much greedier with that we have garnered ourselves

Change in our case is not going to be easy. It takes more than turning off a light to go green. Actually it might be said, a lot of lights are going to have to be turned on before we begin to turn from a nation addicted to fear and consumption into a caring nation as responsible for its people as it is the environment.

At his first news conference the president elect re-iterated his campaign promise to lower taxes on the middle class. What he didn’t’ do was say that he was going to as promised earlier, raise taxes on the richest of those among us. Hmm. One is reminded of the rock group The Who’s famous lyric; new boss same as the old boss! Like I said it is a time to be optimistically pessimistic!